Kerry Calls Arab League Plan to Revive Talks With Israel a ‘Big Step’

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday embraced a proposal by the Arab League to revive peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians as “a very big step forward,” but initial reactions suggested that the new initiative might have difficulty penetrating the years-long impasse.

“We’re taking more steps,” Mr. Kerry said Tuesday, a day after a Qatar-led delegation of Arab states presented the initiative to him and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. at a meeting near the White House. “Yesterday was another step. And we’re going to continue to march forward and try to bring people to the table despite the difficulties and the disappointments of the past.”

Qatar’s foreign minister had suggested the revival of the Arab Peace Initiative, introduced in 2002, and for the first time eased its demand that Israel return to its pre-1967 borders. Instead, the minister accepted the possibility of tweaking those borders with a comparable and mutually agreed “minor swap of the land.”

The Palestinians’ chief negotiator said the Arab League’s proposal reflected their own position, but he reiterated longstanding conditions for resuming talks, which Israel has for the past several years rejected.

Veteran analysts of the peace process saw the Arabs’ inclusion of land swaps as a significant shift, but the new initiative also exposed strains within the new government of Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who did not address the proposal publicly.

A senior Israeli official “welcomed the encouragement” from the Arab League, but suggested that the initiative’s framework was unlikely to be embraced as a starting point for talks.

“Israel is prepared to begin negotiations at any time, in any place and without any early conditions, and expects the Palestinian side to avoid making early conditions,” this official said in a statement, repeating Mr. Netanyahu’s standard line. “The sides will have the opportunity to introduce their positions when the negotiations begin.”

Tzipi Livni, Israel’s new justice minister, who has a special portfolio dealing with the peace process, sounded far more hopeful on Tuesday as she, too, welcomed the Arab League’s proposal.

“It is important for the Palestinians to know that they have the support of the Arab world for a negotiated peace agreement that ends the conflict,” Ms. Livni, a former foreign minister and veteran negotiator, said in a statement. “It’s imperative for the Israeli public to know that peace with the Palestinians means peace with the entire Arab world.”

In addition to Ms. Livni, another new minister in Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition — though not from his party — praised the step.

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“A land swap plan is an encouraging and important step that has the ability to assist and restore the peace initiative,” said the new minister of science, Yaakov Peri, a former director of Israel’s internal security service and a strong advocate of a two-state solution, according to the Israeli news site Ynet. “Such an announcement gives Israel the chance to continue holding on to large settlement blocs.”

Qatar’s foreign minister, Sheik Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani, outlined the proposal on behalf of the Arab League on Monday evening after a meeting at Blair House. He emphasized that peace between the Palestinians and Israelis was “a strategic choice for the Arab states.”

“The Arab League delegation affirms that agreement should be based on the two-state solution, on the basis of the 4th of June 1967 line” with the possibility of a “comparable and mutual agreed minor swap of the land,” he said.

Mr. Kerry and other Obama administration officials had discussed revisions in the Arab League’s peace proposal over several weeks, a senior official said on the condition of anonymity to discuss diplomatic discussions. During Monday’s meeting, ministers from Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian territories went through the original text line by line before agreeing on the concession on territorial swaps. Mr. Kerry encouraged the officials to bring the proposal closer to the administration’s formula on borders in the hope of spurring a resumption of talks.

Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, praised the initiative for providing “a comprehensive regional solution” and “full normalization” for Israel, but he reiterated the Palestinians’ conditions for returning to negotiations — Israel’s acceptance of the two-state solution based on the 1967 borders.

Mr. Erekat expressed doubt that things would change this time. “Israeli rejection of this initiative shows once again that the Israeli government lacks a peace plan,” he said in a statement. “Rather, it is fully engaged in further colonization and attacks against Palestinian rights and regional stability.”

Robert Danin, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who has served in many senior government roles regarding the Middle East, said the Arab League’s new push “could help form the basis of a serious reconstituted peace process.”

In an essay published Tuesday on ForeignPolicy.com, Mr. Danin said the failure of the Arab League’s initiative in 2002 was largely due to circumstances that have since changed. He argued that the region today “is dramatically more ripe” for the proposal, but cautioned that “all parties need to be cleverer about how they manage the initiative.”

Dore Gold, a former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations and a longtime analyst of the peace process who is president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, said the critical question was whether Qatar was reviving the peace initiative as a “take-it-or-leave-it proposition,” as it was originally proffered, or as “an invitation to a negotiated settlement whose final terms remain to be decided.”

A version of this article appears in print on May 1, 2013, on Page A6 of the New York edition with the headline: Kerry Calls Arab League Plan to Revive Talks With Israel a ‘Big Step’. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe